“Dear Lute, dear Lute,” he caressed her with his voice as she moved away among the shadows.
* * *
“Who’s going for the mail?” called a woman’s voice through the trees.
Lute closed the book from which they had been reading, and sighed.
“We weren’t going to ride to-day,” she said.
“Let me go,” Chris proposed. “You stay here. I’ll be down and back in no time.”
She shook her head.
“Who’s going for the mail?” the voice insisted.
“Where’s Martin?” Lute called, lifting her voice in answer.
“I don’t know,” came the voice. “I think Robert took him along somewhere—horse-buying, or fishing, or I don’t know what. There’s really nobody left but Chris and you. Besides, it will give you an appetite for dinner. You’ve been lounging in the hammock all day. And Uncle Robert must have his newspaper.”